I totally dug this entire show and loved the china->rider encore with keller and bob. Thanks to this taper who has produced a great recording of a very memorable incident. I've listened to this show several times now and it's one of my favorites!

A very nice group from Denver shared their carpet with us so we were dancing barefoot the entire show. The next night I brought a carpet for the wife and kid and we had a great time high up in the stands. I highly recommend bringing a roll of carpet for red rocks shows!

I was at the show, and I can attest that the sound quality is much better on tape. The Rain is very good, I especially like the drums which I could barely hear from the 54th row. The first set is jamming, the second set falls off. China Cat is uninspired but the Rider jam was a pleasant surprise. They took it back to it's blugrass roots.

Tasty pull Pete, definitely one of the better Red Rocks recordings I've listened to in a while. I think that the quiet sound that night ended up helping out the recording some. I was 20th row, Kyle side, on this night and the sound was still pretty low. I heard similar complaints from other patrons. This show was good, but the energy level paled in comparison to the Sunday night Rocks show. For this late in the tour I definitely expected more from the boys. Jumping the shark.....??

review:
One Step opener was nice, up beat and started the night off right. I hope they don't play any other songs from OSC though.

GWHW - awesome, thats what im talking about. when kyle dropped right into this I thought for sure the night would be primed for greatness

Rain - this song continues to get better each time. watch for this one to be a good powerhouse by the end of the year

Mrs. Browns - i've heard better

Can't Stop Now - mmm, no

Desert Dawn - totally hot jam in the center. This is defitely though an example of how that night the overall volume in Red Rocks was a lot quieter than usual. Ratdogs sound was louder than Cheese's closing sets. Desert Dawn definitely sounds better on tape than it did that night because of the sound. You couldn't even hear any of Kangs samples.

SET II:

Kidney in a Cooler - "who here likes Keller?" I do! but, I am getting old of them drawing from the same three tunes each time Keller comes up and plays with them. Kidney/Best Feeling/Freaker 80% of the time. but this version is particularly tasty. Lou on vocals too!

Shine - Good song placement for the second song of the set. I thought it would open up the set for some more major jamming and let the energy start to take over. It didn't really happen. This shine was standard, at best, and at this point of the show, I was looking around to see most people no longer paying attention.

Birdland - Why do they always have to play this song at Red Rocks? Nothing special here. Its hard to keep expecting greatness after each year following the Medeski sit a few years ago, I've heard this one get worse and worse here.

Resume Man - Billy won.

Solution - Also a better version of this new tune. Im glad that the new songs are more of a throwback to the 'Round the Wheel' type songs. Those are the types of songs that Cheese writes and plays so well. Im excited to hear how these songs evolve and if more changes or parts are put in.

Way Back Home - Im actually a big fan of this song. cheese alwyas seems to place this song in a good spot. This night was no different. After the new song, they needed something to rope the crowd back in before the end of the set. At this point, I thought for sure that this was the set closer. this WBH was pretty solid and real playful. good interplay between Kyle and Billy as they moved through the verses. The spacey jam in the middle is very Floyd-esque. at this point of the show I was now sold on Kyle's new synth (the Virus), replacing the JP8000. Good tension and release jamming towards the end of the song. I guess this was the warmup for the Sunday IIWII type 2 jamming, which killed it!!

Texas - Man i was hoping for this one. nice pick for the second set closer. This tune was strong, but again, like Desert Dawn the volume of the sound at the venue made it hard to really just let myself go in the jam. The middle jam section started to build slowly, but by the thick of it, it was moving the people. good energy finally at the end of the night.

Chinacat>Rider :
(in banter, Yellow Card to Billy for Group Hoot)
Knew there was to be some collaborations, looking at the rest of the setlists so far from the tour. this combo was a nice surprise. solid couple of tunes, especially when you had 11 people on stage. My only gripe with the encore was that it was a little un-inspired. No one really stepped up to solo, there was a lot of looking around on stage like "now what..."

At the end of the show, there were many who shared the opinion that the sound was less-than-desired on saturday. It left me pondering what didn't work on saturday and wondering if they could fix it for sundays show....

This show is stupendous. I downloaded it the other day from Cotapers. I also paid for the live downloads from Phoenix, Flagstaff, and San Diego and for some reason I can't stop listening to this show (7/1/06) It has it all. A bouncy One Step,Funky GWHW, the tightest Rain so far outerspace Desert Dawn. Killer Kidney. Fine Shine and the rest just falls right into perfect Place. I guess I am going to have to purchase the live download. Kudos to the taper for a fine job, killer sound too. Thanks